A federal judge has told President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to stop treating the Epstein files that name him like an ordinary paperwork pile. On September 30, 2026, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered expedited processing of Freedom of Information Act requests for investigative records that mention Trump or Mar-a-Lago, and for the internal messages showing how his senior officials handled those files.
ルーリングで 民主主義擁護者基金v.正義の国家部門 does not order an instant public dump. Kollar-Kotelly held that the department’s own rules already required these searches to jump the line, because the subject raises possible questions about government integrity and public confidence. Trump campaigned on opening the Epstein files. His administration then spent more than a year arguing about pace, redactions, and which names the public was allowed to see.
裁判所がジャスティス部を最初に移動するように命じたもの
Democracy Defenders Fund filed the core request on July 22, 2025, with the Criminal Division. It asked for records from the federal investigations of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell that mention Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump, President Trump, name variations, Mar-a-Lago, or any code name used for the president or the Palm Beach estate. Kollar-Kotelly granted expedited processing for that request in full. Her 覚書意見 調査およびそれらのキーワードの要求が広く普及し、例外的な媒体の興味を示したと言う。
7月22日は、ドナルド・トランプまたはマー・ア・ラゴ、パーム・ビーチの不動産について、裁判所を条件とする検索の中心で言及する調査記録を求めています。
Two matching requests went out on July 28, 2025, to the Criminal Division and to the offices of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general. They cover records from January 20, 2025, forward. They seek communications about Epstein or Maxwell, including messages on personal devices, calendars and meeting materials, documents that identify clients or associates such as flight logs, and communications about how officials should handle or flag references to Trump or Mar-a-Lago.
The named officials are then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, then-Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, FBI Director Kash Patel, and then-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. The judge moved most of those July 28 requests to the front of the queue. She cut back the pieces that swept in any Justice Department official, limiting priority treatment to the senior officials actually named. A request for expedition, under earlier D.C. precedent she applied, has to be reasonably tailored to the controversy generating the coverage.
なぜ裁判官は、公共の自信がラインにあると述べた
加工方法 28 日 C.F.R. §16.5(e)(1)(iv) is required when a request involves a matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions about the government’s integrity that affect public confidence. The department denied that treatment. Democracy Defenders Fund sued on August 21, 2025. Kollar-Kotelly reviewed the refusal afresh and treated it as a constructive denial of the department’s own rule.
The opinion tracks the record the group put in front of her. Trump said in the 2024 campaign that he would declassify the Epstein files. On February 21, 2025, Bondi was asked on Fox News whether a client list would be released. Phase 1 binders that followed were dismissed as a repackaging of material already public. A July 7, 2025, memo said investigators had found no incriminating client list, and the backlash was bipartisan. A Reuters poll on July 15 and 16, 2025, found that 69 percent of Americans believed the government was concealing information about Epstein’s clients.
The court also cited a July 18, 2025, letter from Senator Dick Durbin describing a March 2025 review in which Bondi pressed roughly 1,000 FBI personnel, working around the clock, to examine about 100,000 Epstein-related records and flag any that mentioned Trump. The same week, Bondi and Blanche signed a New York motion to unseal grand jury testimony.
これらの要求が露出するために構築されている名前の障壁の戦い
エプスタインへのトランプの社会的ネクタイは、この訴訟のために発明された噂ではありません。 2人の男性は、同じパームビーチとマンハッタンの輪に何年も移動しました。 フライトレコードは、Epsteinのジェット機でトランプを提示し、公共のデニアルよりも多くの場合、ギャップ AEGIS Allianceは、連邦の検察官の手紙の後に調べました レコードに追加の旅行を置く。 トランプは、彼はマル・ア・ラゴからエプスタインを禁止したと述べた。 彼が説明していない, 文書で, FBIの査読者が彼の名前を含むページをマークし始めたとき、彼の管理は何をしたか.
That is the hole the July 28 requests are shaped to fill. They ask for the messages, calendars, and handling instructions of the officials who ran the review. Those five were in a position to decide which pages moved, which names disappeared under a black box, and which campaign promises survived the file room.
Patel has been pressed in Congress on whether Trump’s name was scrubbed while agents were pulled off other work. He has rejected that account. The court did not adopt either version as proven fact. It held that the dispute is public enough that the records have to move ahead of the ordinary line. ブランシュの早期報道と見逃し開示期限 すでにこの管理が別の遅延で裁判所の日付を満たしている頻度を示しました。
余計に部屋を残す部分的な勝利
watchdog は、要求したすべてのものを手に入れませんでした。 Kollar-Kotellyは別々の説得力のある必要性のトラックの下のexpeditionを否定しました 情報行為の自由. That track applies when the requester is primarily engaged in disseminating information and there is an urgency to inform the public. On this record, the judge found Democracy Defenders Fund is mainly a litigation and advocacy group. Publishing what it learns is incidental to that work, so the statutory claim failed.
これらのリクエストがFOIAキューを上回る処理を行ないます。 各ページを一度に公開するように正義部を強制しません。
Priority processing means a faster search and response. It does not waive exemptions. Victim identities, grand jury secrecy, and law-enforcement privileges can still black out pages. If the department over-redacts or under-searches, the fight returns to the same court. Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, said stalling had been the tactic and that it stops now. The order is a lever, not the binders.
注文が透明性法トランプ署名と衝突する方法
Congress already tried the direct route. The Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed by Trump on November 19, 2025, told the attorney general to publish unclassified files on Epstein, Maxwell, and their associates by December 19, 2025. The department posted batches that month and again on January 30, 2026, then said it had complied after releasing about 3.5 million pages. aegis アライアンスがジャヌリー 2026 に報告 薄切りのみが切れる前の入学。 その後のドロップは引数を終了しなかった。
2018年9月10日 民主防衛軍は言った FBI records from its FOIA litigation showed emails among Patel, Bongino, and Bove tracking the March 2025 review. The group said many of those messages never appeared in the Epstein Library, or appeared with officials’ names stripped, even though the same names were readable in the FOIA copies. It also said the department had reviewed a purported 6 million pages and released 3.5 million. If that accounting holds, the library the public was told was complete is still missing the paper trail of the people who decided what the public would see.
裁判所の命令と同じ午後, センテート財務委員会は、会員ロン・ウィデンをランク付け 要求される 当事務所の弁護士のTdd BlancheとFBIディレクターのKash Patel氏が、銀行の従業員のインタビューを含むEpstein調査のFBIインタビューレポートを上回る。 ウィデンは、少なくとも1人の銀行のインタビューが公共と議会から守られたと述べた。 ジャーナリストによる訴訟 Katie Phang 完全開示の妨げとなる部門を既に認定しています。 パターンはもう1つの期限を逃さない。
これらのファイルが動くので、パブリックが見るべきこと
Eisen said the public deserves answers about who and what is in the Epstein files, and that what the department has produced falls far short of what Congress mandated. His group will hold the department to the order until Americans can judge the records themselves. The 10月1日 声明 箱が開いているという主張ではなく、より多くの訴訟の約束です。
Three tests will show whether the order means anything. The Criminal Division has to search for Trump, Mar-a-Lago, and the code names in the request, instead of pointing at the library and calling the job finished. Messages on personal devices have to be searched or the refusal defended in court. Redactions have to protect victims, not the officials who gave the orders. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence. Epstein died in federal custody in 2019. The open question is which powerful men the files still name, and who in Trump’s government decided the public should not be first to know.
ボンダイの除去はファイルをリセットしませんでした。 Blanche は、部門が Epstein とは何の関係もなかった変更を主張しました. このリクエストは、レビューを実行しているコマンドのチェーンにまだ座っている間、移動しました。 コミュニケーションが存在すると、その主張が紙にマッチするかどうかが表示されます。
関連する報告は、 犯罪ニュース, 政治と アメリカ合衆国のニュース エーゲス・アライアンスから、 ジスラインMaxwellの逮捕.
